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disable postal codes auto-insertion

Denis Volkov

August 14, 2026 08:46

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According to Wikipedia, first postal codes appeared in London back in 1857. So inserting postal codes to records prior to that date is an absolute historical nonsense, and we try to maintain Geni as much accurate as possible, right? In Russia (then USSR), postal codes didn't exist until 1925. Geni auto-inserts a postal code for the city of Arkhangelsk for any location within the huge Arkhangelsk Governorate (see the screenshot), which is also a nonsense since this is just one of many codes used in that city (163000 through 163072). The area of that governorate was larger than the whole France, and you don't auto-insert Paris postal codes to any French location, do you? Localities I'm currently working on are 130+ kms away from Arkhangelsk -- it's about the same distance as between Paris and Orléans -- and a postal code of the city (163062), not even the one of the central post office, adds absolutely no value to these records, nor even for geolocation purposes. Such inaccuracy is a major annoyance and spoils Geni's image as an accurate and reliable platform. The problem has already been reported several times in discussions (https://www.geni.com/discussions/125105?msg=1835245, https://www.geni.com/discussions/125105?msg=1813832 & https://www.geni.com/discussions/125105?msg=1814396, https://www.geni.com/discussions/125105?msg=1721544, https://www.geni.com/discussions/125105?msg=1699483, https://www.geni.com/discussions/125105?msg=1698724) but was ignored or just overlooked? Please disable auto-insertion of postal codes, at least for historical records. 

2 comments

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  Ashley Odell August 15, 2026 02:45

  The problem is that this can't be done as a blanket decision across Geni, especially because it would be impossible to figure out a year cutoff. You'd have to go country-by-country to figure out when to use or not use them. Do we have anyone volunteering to do that labor? (I'm asking sincerely.)

  In the U.S., the UK, and many other places, postal codes play an important role in narrowing down the specific neighborhoods events occurred in, which in turn can narrow down the records, libraries, museums, etc. researchers should consult. (As long as you remember to check for historical postal zone boundary shifts!) Just recently I had an autopopulated UK postal code help me catch a mistake on a profile. When I typed in a street address, Geni autopopulated a different postal code than was on the 2010s record I was looking at. After finding other records to cross-check, I realized that "Example Avenue" on the record should have been "Example Crescent"; two totally different streets on opposite sides of the city had been confused. That was definitely not the first time an autopopulated postal code helped me out.

  I totally get the frustration with having postal codes appear on profiles from the pre-modern era. I feel that frustration, too, and I'd like to find a solution that meets everyone's needs. But any suppression of postal codes would need to be regionally done, with careful attention to dates, and otherwise extremely thoughtful.

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  Job Waterreus August 15, 2026 08:11

  We really need some better tools to manage the location database and also for correcting the location data on profiles.

  You could probably find the introduction of postal codes for most countries on Wikipedia. If you had that date in the database, you could that date as a cut off when adding new location entries and may be for removing the postal code from existing historical records.